Prologue
by Sahlir
Summary: Harry Potter wakes up to find himself in a courtroom full of people that suddenly hate him. OOC


Hey! It's my first ever story and I'm so proud! I hope you like it and have fun! :D

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There was a buzzing in his head. He felt dizzy and sore all over. The lights above him were too bright. He wanted to tell them to dim them a bit, but his tongue felt thick and wouldn't follow his orders. He wanted to see where he was, but his eyelids wouldn't move. He wanted to rub his eyes, but he couldn't move his hands. There was something blocking his movements.

As his mind begun to clear, the buzzing sound in his ears got clearer as well, and he could distinguish voices. Angry voices._ The hell?_ His memories started to return to him. He'd been in a dark corridor when he'd been attacked from behind. He'd been looking for something. No, looking for some_one_. The boy searched in his mind to find more answers. Why had he been looking for someone?

And suddenly, like a light had been switched on, everything that had happened to him came back suddenly. He locked his muscles in the positions they had been before waking up, slowed his breathing and tried to assess the situation. he remembered searching for Ron, desperately looking for him after the startled yell of his name he'd heard.

He'd been just around the corner from where he'd heard the cry when someone crashed into him from behind, making him fall to the stone floor and hitting his head. Everything went dark after that.

The buzzing in his mind had stopped now and he could distinguish words, finally understanding the angry debate going on around him.

"Harry would never do that to Ron!" he recognised Luna's voice. Never before had he heard his silent friend so aggressive.

"Then how do you explain the body? All the evidence points towards mr. Potter here, now if you can't stay quiet-" "But minister, surely you're not planning on -" "My poor child! This bastard deserves to die a-" "Calm, I demand calm, take your seats and be-"

Too many voices, talking at the same time. Harry's head was already pounding again. Just as he was about to open his mouth and tell them to take it down a notch, Ginny's, Ron's sister's, normally gentle voice sounded over the others, "My brother is dead because of this boy, minister, surely you aren't going to _lessen_ his sentence due to his ... position?" While this brought on a new, even more vicious argument, Harry didn't hear any of it. He's mind had stopped working when he'd heard those two words. _Brother dead._ Brother dead.

Brother dead.

Brother dead?

Ron? Dead?

Harry's world tunneled out, all he could focus on were those two words. He started hyperalating, desperate for it to not be true. Unfortunately, the minister, standing next to the chair Harry had been placed on, noticed this and ordered silence to the room. The boy's eyes shot open without a direct order to do so and searched the room he was in - a courtroom, he now realised - for Ginny. Finding the familiar face, Harry was stunned to find it etched into hatred while looking back at him.

Distantly, as if from another world, he heard the minister declaring the court session opened. Unable to look at such hatred directed at him, Harry looked at his lap and noticed his arms and legs tied to the chair. When he tried to take in a deep breath, he noticed there was another shackle around his chest. _To keep the criminal from attacking the witnesses_, he remembered his teacher once explaining to him,_ and to keep the criminal from escaping._

Still stunned, his mind unable to comprehend the passing of his best friend, he listened as proof was presented against him. Apparently he'd been fed up with the attention Ron had been getting from the other students and during an argument with said friend, had stabbed him in the gut with the silver pocket-knife everyone knew had been a family heirloom, one of a kind. He'd then stumbled, after realising what he'd done and fallen to the floor, hitting his head in the process and loosing conciousness.

The court decided that even though he'd _obviously_ been shocked with his actions afterwards, it wasn't enough to free him from his sentence. Expelled from the student centre and sent to do compulsory work for the next 16 years. To just waste away for 16 years?

It grew silent again in his mind. 16 years of hard work for a crime he didn't commit. Thrown out of school. He fucking owned a quarter of that school! How dare they expel him from there!

The anger grew in Harry, gathering, pulsing hot anger until something snapped, deep inside. Ron had been the only thing holding him back from his true destiny. No more. No more!

With an angry roar he shot from the chair, ripping the shackles with his inhuman strength in the process, gathered the darkness in the room, wrapping it around himself like a blanket and silently disappeared. All that was left behind him was an empty chair and a stunned courtroom.


End file.
